Neighborhood Pack II

One of the frustrations when you are building a business (especially in a recession) is not having a big enough customer base to do some of the things you want to do.

So by the end of summer when we had enough dogs to make getting together in group possible, we started doing Neighborhood Pack sessions. Of course we did not call it that until we met Pat Rock.

The name is a dead on description of what happens. We form a pack. Last weeks pack had a Border Collie, two Boston Terriers, a Min Pin, a Jack Russell Terrier, a Norfolk Terrier, and a Standard Poodle. Three of the dogs were under a year in age. One dog had extreme dog aggression and another was a rescue with severe seperation anxiety.

Now each of these dogs had finished their private lessons and was making progress. But to complete the training process the dog needed a couple of sessions in a pack. And that night they were.

We dont turn dogs loose. But there is a pack leader, me. And there are higher ranking members of the pack, who have to be respected. That is the owners.

There were no miracles. But there was progress. Everyone learned that the rules their owners have established apply in every situation.

The excitement of the night was when the dog aggressive dog managed to snap open his lead and get loose. He challenged every dog in the center. But there were no bites, just bluffing. Ane he quickly learned that unacceptable behavior results in a frim, but fair, correction. He still has a way to go but that was a big step for him. And every other dog in the room learned they can trust their owners.

Neighborhood Pack has be so successful that now every dog finishes training by attending three sessions. Since the dog learns from the other dogs, and the owners learn from each other, the dog and owner finish the training and cement their relationship.

This gives us the ability to take advantage of both one on one training, and group training.

Plus now you have a place to come back to from time to time to sharpen you and the dog.

Doug

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Why dog training fails part II crooked trainers

Back in May I did a blog on why dog training fails. I tried to explain why training fails sometimes to help you when selecting a trainer. I deliberately made “You aren’t comfortable with the dog trainer” the last section.

I struggled with the writing of that section. Most of the struggle was because a lot of dog trainers aren’t bad people, they just can’t train your dog. They are incompetent not crooked.

But I pulled the punches on that too, because I was aware of one trainer who runs a scam. Your dog is always the one with a severe problem. He can fix it but you need to come back for more training. The problem is I have never seen, nor have I ever met anyone who has ever seen a dog he finished.

I have seen dogs that the owners have decided to come to me to fix. And each one of those dogs has been conditioned to aggressive. And since the dog is still aggressive, he told them they needed to have more training. The goal seems to be to keep you coming back and spending more money until you finally give up on the dog.

I decided to stay away from that in the blog as I thought this trainer was so far out of the norm as to be one of those rare situations that are so likely never to happen anywhere else that there was no point in warning about it.

I was wrong.

Last week KKTV here in Colorado Springs posted a news story on a dog trainer here in Colorado Springs. A family had contracted the trainer about training three dogs. They signed a contract and dropped off the dogs. When they came back three days later, one of the dogs was missing. They located the dog near a busy highway. The retrieved the other two dogs and asked for refund. The trainer refused. They contacted the TV station.

If you want to learn more Google “kktv dog training”.

The trainer has been accused of being an ex con who learned dog training in prison. He has never answered the question directly. I don’t know if he is or not. But his evasive answers sure resemble those of experienced liars.

A lot of prisons have dog training programs. And they do some impressive work with dogs. Dogs that might otherwise be put down become great pets. And people in prison can learn a skill that might keep them out of trouble once they get out.

If you have read my blogs before, or read my profile, you know I am a retired Deputy Sheriff here in El Paso County Colorado.

I know a lot of ex cons. And some of them are people who my investigations put in prison. Some of them did their time, learned their lesson, and have come back determined to never repeat the behavior that got them in trouble.

But not all of them chose to change. Some of them think they have found ways not to get caught the next time. It never works, but they keep hoping rather than changing.

This would not be the first time someone got out of prison with a skill that they used to run a scam rather than a legitimate business

I have come to the sad conclusion that this is not an isolated case.

Two years ago I picked up a business magazine with an article of the pet industry. It put the total industry, not just training but all pet related businesses, as a 7 billion dollar a year industry.

If there is money to be made somewhere, you can bet the crooks are going to show up.

So how do you protect yourself? First and foremost, do your research.

Start with the internet. Any search engine will take you to a list of trainers.

But use more than one search engine. If you find me on Yahoo I have only one review, on Google I have 14. On Dex I have seven. Same business, but obviously most of my customers use Google.

Be suspicious of anyone who has a lot of reviews on a less used site. Think about it. Why would you have a lot of reviews on a site where none of the other trainers have any?

Be very suspicious of testimonials on the trainer’s website. Come on, I did my website. I can put down anything I want and you have no way of knowing whether it was edited by me, written by my best friend, or just made up. If the website says the business has only been open less than a year, and the testimonial page thanks the trainer for years of work, you should be suspicious.

Be wary of people who want you to leave the dog to be trained. There are people who do that kind of training and you are going to get a trained dog. They are great people. But if the trainer is not going to work the dog, or do things that mean you have to spend more money, are they going to want you to see the training?

Don’t count on them being in business a long time as a guarantee of success. Bernie Madoff ran a con for years. And I bet he had a great website.

Watch them train. If they have group then go to their group session. If everything is privates then get a couple of times to go in and do not let them know when you are showing up. What you see is probably going to be what you get, if you control when you see it.

Don’t be rushed into signing with the trainer. If I am good at what I do, then I don’t have to sign up everyone I talk to. If I am not, then I only get one shot at separating you from your money and I can’t afford to let anyone get away.

When I trained cops I used to teach them that:

If it walks like a duck

And it talks like a duck

It is probably going to be a duck.

It is better for your dog if you walk away from a good trainer than to sign up with a bad or crooked one.

Doug

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Neighborhood Packs

Earlier this month my wife and I took our annual vacation. We like to pick somewhere we haven’t spent time before and head there to explore the region. Since neither of us had ever been to Williamsburg VA we headed out that way.

We were fortunate enough to be invited to visit Pat Rock who lives in the area. Pat is the president of the United States Lakeland Terrier club and a long time breeder.

The visit was wonderful. We talked about dogs, and got to meet all the dogs in her kennels, including two of our Tag’s pups. And much to our surprise, we found out Pat has Chicklet’s father. That will have to wait for another blog but led to some wonderful discoveries.

In one of our conversations we discussed the behavioral problems in dogs today. One of my observations is that more dogs than ever seem to need training.

Pat said that one of the reasons is that there are no longer neighborhood packs. When she said that a light bulb lit up.

I grew up in the late fifties and early sixties. As soon as she said that I remembered the neighborhood in Arlington, Texas where we lived while I went to grade school. One of the differences between that neighborhood and the one I live in now was that almost no one had fenced yards. You could step out our back door and look north to four or five open backyards. We had enough room to play football.

As a result there were always three packs running through the neighborhood. One was all the boys, one was all the girls, and the other was all the neighborhood dogs. The dog pack usually traveled back and forth to the two human packs.

There weren’t any leash laws back then. And people were much more careful about not letting intact dogs accidentally breed (I can’t remember a single litter in the neighborhood).

When a new dog came into the neighborhood, there was already an existing pack to join and rank had been established. The new dog quickly figured out its place. And if it was foolish enough to challenge one of the neighborhood kids, the pack quickly put it in its place. I can remember the occasional fight but not once was any blood shed.

And as I am writing this I suddenly remembered that the one dog we were all afraid of lived in one of the few houses with a fenced back yard. When he got out their was all kinds of confusion. Because he was not socialized to the various packs, he simply did not know how to act.

When a dog finishes its primary training here in our center, it goes into group sessions to make sure that both the owner and the dog know how to handle themselves around other dogs. What I am forming is a neighborhood pack. And as a result, these dogs are learning what the dogs from so long ago knew.

I kind of wish I could pull down some fences in my neighborhood.

Doug

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Training a deaf dog Part 1

I get to train one or two deaf dogs a year here at Pikes Peak Manners In Minutes so I thought it might be interesting for my two or three regular readers to keep a record of one of those trainings.

Last week Simba came in for an assessment. Simba is a ten month old mix, according to his owner he is pit bull, boxer, Australian shepherd, and maybe something else. Simba was able to drag her in as he is a very powerful dog and he isn’t fully grown yet.

She decided to train with me so Monday we started his training.

The first thing I have to teach a deaf dog is how to “hear” their commands. This is not a problem with a hearing dog, because whatever I say the dog will hear wherever it is and wherever it is looking. But since deaf dogs get their commands by hand signals, the dog has to see me to “hear” me.

So the first thing we teach a deaf dog is “face.” I start with a piece of food and stand very close to the dog. I point to my nose, and then hold the food in front of the dog. I raise the food up to my nose as his eyes follow me. When he looks me in the eye then I give the hand signal for good (closed fist taping in the center of your chest) and then the signal for “face” (index finger on nose) and then give the dog the morsel of food.

If you have read my blog on jelly doughnut training then you know I am not a big fan of food training. It is too easy to over reward and end up with a dog that will not do anything unless you have a treat in your hand. So although I have a treat in my hand while I do this, the food reward is very random.

Once the dog is looking at my face on command up when I am close, I then teach them to look at my face by tugging lightly on their leash two times. I tug the line, then when the look in my direction I give the signal for “face.” When the dog looks me in the face I signal “good” and ‘face” because we are now relying on praise, rather than food, as the reward for compliance. This way I can call him whenever he is on a line or leash.

The last thing to teach the dog before we start on commands is their name. I like this hand signal to be something that reminds you of their name. The first thing I thought of was a mane. By holding our hands palm out and fingers straight up next to our ears we could imitate a lion’s mane. However we cannot use both hands for a sign and control a leash, so one hand next to the ear becomes the name Simba.

Once we had a way to tell the dog to look for a command, and a way to praise him, by name, we were ready to start training.

More to come.

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